Lamentations 4

¹⁹They will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will seem unclean. Their silver and gold cannot save them in the day of the wrath of the Lord. They cannot satisfy their appetites or fill their stomachs with wealth, for it became the stumbling block that brought their iniquity.

²⁰His beautiful ornaments they transformed into pride and used them to fashion their vile images and detestable idols. Therefore I will make these into something unclean for them.

¹⁹Arise, cry out in the night from the first watch of the night. Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to Him for the lives of your children who are fainting from hunger on the corner of every street.

²¹See how the faithful city has become a harlot! She once was full of justice; righteousness resided within her, but now only murderers!

⁹He burned down the house of the Lord, the royal palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem—every significant building.

¹⁰And the whole army of the Chaldeans under the captain of the guard broke down the walls around Jerusalem.

¹³He burned down the house of the Lord, the royal palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem—every significant building.

²“Do you see all these things?” He replied. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”

¹⁴It will break in pieces like a potter’s jar, shattered so that no fragment can be found. Not a shard will be found in the dust large enough to scoop the coals from a hearth or to skim the water from a cistern.”

²¹Does not the potter have the right to make from the same lump of clay one vessel for special occasions and another for common use?

²²What if God, intending to show His wrath and make His power known, bore with great patience the vessels of His wrath, prepared for destruction?

¹¹and you are to proclaim to them that this is what the Lord of Hosts says: I will shatter this nation and this city, like one shatters a potter’s jar that can never again be repaired. They will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room to bury them.

²⁰A large house contains not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay. Some indeed are for honorable use, but others are for common use.

⁷Now we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this surpassingly great power is from God and not from us.

¹³For I will bend Judah as My bow and fit it with Ephraim. I will rouse your sons, O Zion, against the sons of Greece. I will make you like the sword of a mighty man.

²⁸But Jesus turned to them and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.

²⁹Look, the days are coming when people will say, ‘Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore, and breasts that never nursed!’

¹⁰As a result, fathers among you will eat their sons, and sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments against you and scatter all your remnant to every wind.’

¹⁰The hands of compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

²⁰Look, O Lord, and consider: Whom have You ever treated like this? Should women eat their offspring, the infants they have nurtured? Should priests and prophets be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?

¹³The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully, but cannot match the pinions and feathers of the stork.

¹⁴For she leaves her eggs on the ground and lets them warm in the sand.

⁹I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh in the siege and distress inflicted on them by their enemies who seek their lives.’

¹⁵My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You lay me in the dust of death.

¹¹My eyes fail from weeping; I am churning within. My heart is poured out in grief over the destruction of the daughter of my people, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.

¹²They cry out to their mothers: “Where is the grain and wine?” as they faint like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their lives fade away in the arms of their mothers.

⁶May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not exalt Jerusalem as my greatest joy!

²⁴They will be wasted from hunger and ravaged by pestilence and bitter plague; I will send the fangs of wild beasts against them, with the venom of vipers that slither in the dust.

⁹Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?

¹⁰Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?

¹¹All her people groan as they search for bread. They have traded their treasures for food to keep themselves alive. Look, O Lord, and consider, for I have become despised.

¹⁹Now there was a rich man dressed in purple and fine linen, who lived each day in joyous splendor.

²¹When it snows, she has no fear for her household, for they are all clothed in scarlet.

³You dismiss the day of calamity and bring near a reign of violence.

⁴You lie on beds inlaid with ivory, and lounge upon your couches. You dine on lambs from the flock and calves from the stall.

¹⁶He longed to fill his belly with the pods the pigs were eating, but no one would give him a thing.

⁶But she who lives for pleasure is dead even while she is still alive.

⁵⁴The most gentle and refined man among you will begrudge his brother, the wife he embraces, and the rest of his children who have survived,

⁵⁵refusing to share with any of them the flesh of his children he will eat because he has nothing left in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you within all your gates.

²⁵Thus He destroyed these cities and the entire plain, including all the inhabitants of the cities and everything that grew on the ground.

⁹Unless the Lord of Hosts had left us a few survivors, we would have become like Sodom, we would have resembled Gomorrah.

¹⁰Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom; listen to the instruction of our God, you people of Gomorrah!

⁴⁷That servant who knows his master’s will but does not get ready or follow his instructions will be beaten with many blows.

¹²I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.

²¹For at that time there will be great tribulation, unseen from the beginning of the world until now, and never to be seen again.

²³And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to heaven? No, you will be brought down to Hades! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day.

²⁴But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”

⁷Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

¹⁰My beloved is dazzling and ruddy, outstanding among ten thousand.

¹²Then our sons will be like plants nurtured in their youth, our daughters like corner pillars carved to adorn a palace.

¹²So Jesse sent for his youngest son and brought him in. He was ruddy, with beautiful eyes and a handsome appearance. And the Lord said, “Rise and anoint him, for he is the one.”

²“Speak to the Israelites and tell them that if a man or woman makes a special vow, the vow of a Nazirite, to separate himself to the Lord,

³he is to abstain from wine and strong drink. He must not drink vinegar made from wine or strong drink, and he must not drink any grape juice or eat fresh grapes or raisins.

⁵For behold, you will conceive and give birth to a son. And no razor shall touch his head, because the boy will be a Nazirite to God from the womb, and he will begin the deliverance of Israel from the hand of the Philistines.”

¹⁰Our skin is as hot as an oven with fever from our hunger.

³⁰My skin grows black and peels, and my bones burn with fever.

³For my days vanish like smoke, and my bones burn like glowing embers.

⁴My heart is afflicted, and withered like grass; I even forget to eat my bread.

²⁰My skin and flesh cling to my bones; I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

⁸³Though I am like a wineskin dried up by smoke, I do not forget Your statutes.

³There is no soundness in my body because of Your anger; there is no rest in my bones because of my sin.

⁴“They will die from deadly diseases. They will not be mourned or buried, but will lie like dung on the ground. They will be finished off by sword and famine, and their corpses will become food for the birds of the air and beasts of the earth.”

²³Your turbans will remain on your heads and your sandals on your feet. You will not mourn or weep, but you will waste away because of your sins, and you will groan among yourselves.

³⁹Those of you who survive in the lands of your enemies will waste away in their iniquity and will decay in the sins of their fathers.

¹⁰Now as for you, son of man, tell the house of Israel that this is what they have said: ‘Our transgressions and our sins are heavy upon us, and we are wasting away because of them! How can we live?’

¹⁵“Can a woman forget her nursing child, or lack compassion for the son of her womb? Even if she could forget, I will not forget you!

²⁰Look, O Lord, and consider: Whom have You ever treated like this? Should women eat their offspring, the infants they have nurtured? Should priests and prophets be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?

²⁶As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, “Help me, my lord the king!”

²⁷He answered, “If the Lord does not help you, where can I find help for you? From the threshing floor or the winepress?”

⁹I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh in the siege and distress inflicted on them by their enemies who seek their lives.’

³Even jackals offer their breasts to nurse their young, but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like an ostrich in the wilderness.

⁴⁸Streams of tears flow from my eyes over the destruction of the daughter of my people.

²⁰Therefore this is what the Lord God says: Behold, My anger and My fury will be poured out on this place, on man and beast, on the trees of the field and the produce of the land, and it will burn and not be extinguished.

³¹So I have poured out My indignation upon them and consumed them with the fire of My fury. I have brought their ways down upon their own heads, declares the Lord God.”

¹⁷The Lord has done what He planned; He has accomplished His decree, which He ordained in days of old; He has overthrown you without pity. He has let the enemy gloat over you and exalted the horn of your foes.

²⁷But if you do not listen to Me to keep the Sabbath day holy by not carrying a load while entering the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle an unquenchable fire in its gates to consume the citadels of Jerusalem.’”

⁴⁷Say to the forest of the Negev: Hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Lord God says: I am about to ignite in you a fire, and it will devour all your trees, both green and dry. The blazing flame will not be quenched, and by it every face from south to north will be scorched.

⁴⁸Then all people will see that I, the Lord, have kindled it; it will not be quenched.”

¹²You have carried out the words spoken against us and against our rulers by bringing upon us a great disaster. For under all of heaven, nothing has ever been done like what has been done to Jerusalem.

⁴For behold, the kings assembled; they all advanced together.

⁵They saw and were astounded; they fled in terror.

²⁴So all the nations will ask, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land? Why this great outburst of anger?’

²⁵And the people will answer, ‘It is because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt.

⁸And when this temple has become a heap of rubble, all who pass by it will be appalled and will hiss and say, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’

⁹And others will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the Lord their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—because of this, the Lord has brought all this disaster upon them.’”

¹³Behold, I am against you who dwell above the valley, atop the rocky plateau—declares the Lord—you who say, “Who can come against us? Who can enter our dwellings?”

³¹The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority. My people love it so, but what will you do in the end?

¹³“For from the least of them to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; from prophet to priest, all practice deceit.

³¹So you testify against yourselves that you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets.

⁸and as soon as he had finished telling all the people everything the Lord had commanded him to say, the priests and prophets and all the people seized him, shouting, “You must surely die!

⁹How dare you prophesy in the name of the Lord that this house will become like Shiloh and this city will be desolate and deserted!” And all the people assembled against Jeremiah in the house of the Lord.

²⁶Her priests do violence to My law and profane My holy things. They make no distinction between the holy and the common, and they fail to distinguish between the clean and the unclean. They disregard My Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them.

²⁷Her officials within her are like wolves tearing their prey, shedding blood, and destroying lives for dishonest gain.

¹⁴The visions of your prophets were empty and deceptive; they did not expose your guilt to ward off your captivity. The burdens they envisioned for you were empty and misleading.

¹⁵When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you; even though you multiply your prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood.

³⁴Moreover, your skirts are stained with the blood of the innocent poor, though you did not find them breaking in. But in spite of all these things

¹⁶Anyone in the open field who touches someone who has been killed by the sword or has died of natural causes, or anyone who touches a human bone or a grave, will be unclean for seven days.

²⁸The Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness, and confusion of mind,

²⁹and at noon you will grope about like a blind man in the darkness. You will not prosper in your ways. Day after day you will be oppressed and plundered, with no one to save you.

¹⁰Israel’s watchmen are blind, they are all oblivious; they are all mute dogs, they cannot bark; they are dreamers lying around, loving to slumber.

²Cursing and lying, murder and stealing, and adultery are rampant; one act of bloodshed follows another.

⁴⁵A diseased person must wear torn clothes and let his hair hang loose, and he must cover his mouth and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean!’

⁴⁶As long as he has the infection, he remains unclean. He must live alone in a place outside the camp.

¹⁴So the Lord will cut off Israel’s head and tail, both palm branch and reed in a single day.

¹⁵The head is the elder and honorable man, and the tail is the prophet who teaches lies.

¹²Princes have been hung up by their hands; elders receive no respect.

²⁶I would have said that I would cut them to pieces and blot out their memory from mankind,

⁹I will make them a horror and an offense to all the kingdoms of the earth, a disgrace and an object of scorn, ridicule, and cursing wherever I have banished them.

⁶⁴Then the Lord will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.

⁶⁵Among those nations you will find no repose, not even a resting place for the sole of your foot. There the Lord will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despairing soul.

²⁵The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will march out against them in one direction but flee from them in seven. You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.

¹⁶Egypt will never again be an object of trust for the house of Israel, but will remind them of their iniquity in turning to the Egyptians. Then they will know that I am the Lord God.”

⁵Those who made Cush their hope and Egypt their boast will be dismayed and ashamed.

⁷Now the king of Egypt did not march out of his land again, because the king of Babylon had taken all his territory, from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates River.

³⁶How impulsive you are, constantly changing your ways! You will be disappointed by Egypt just as you were by Assyria.

⁷In the days of her affliction and wandering Jerusalem remembers all the treasures that were hers in days of old. When her people fell into enemy hands she received no help. Her enemies looked upon her, laughing at her downfall.

⁶Then all the people of Egypt will know that I am the Lord. For you were only a staff of reeds to the house of Israel.

⁷When Israel took hold of you with their hands, you splintered, tearing all their shoulders; when they leaned on you, you broke, and their backs were wrenched.

²“Amos, what do you see?” He asked. “A basket of summer fruit,” I replied. So the Lord said to me, “The end has come for My people Israel; I will no longer spare them.”

¹¹May no slanderer be established in the land; may calamity hunt down the man of violence.

²“O son of man, this is what the Lord God says to the land of Israel: ‘The end! The end has come upon the four corners of the land.

³The end is now upon you, and I will unleash My anger against you. I will judge you according to your ways and repay you for all your abominations.

⁵²Without cause my enemies hunted me like a bird.

¹⁶But for now I will send for many fishermen, declares the Lord, and they will catch them. After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill, even from the clefts of the rocks.

¹⁴Against whom has the king of Israel come out? Whom are you pursuing? A dead dog? A flea?

⁸Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves of the night. Their horsemen charge ahead, and their cavalry comes from afar. They fly like a vulture, swooping down to devour.

¹³Behold, he advances like the clouds, his chariots like the whirlwind. His horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us, for we are ruined!

²⁶He lifts a banner for the distant nations and whistles for those at the ends of the earth. Behold—how speedily and swiftly they come!

²⁷None of them grows weary or stumbles; no one slumbers or sleeps. No belt is loose and no sandal strap is broken.

⁴⁹The Lord will bring a nation from afar, from the ends of the earth, to swoop down upon you like an eagle—a nation whose language you will not understand,

¹⁶“No,” you say, “we will flee on horses.” Therefore you will flee! “We will ride swift horses,” but your pursuers will be faster.

¹⁷A thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will all flee, until you are left alone like a pole on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill.

¹Put the ram’s horn to your lips! An eagle looms over the house of the Lord, because the people have transgressed My covenant and rebelled against My law.

¹⁴So David asked him, “Why were you not afraid to lift your hand to destroy the Lord’s anointed?”

⁷Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.

¹³But I will spread My net over him, and he will be caught in My snare. I will bring him to Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans; yet he will not see it, and there he will die.

⁵But the army of the Chaldeans pursued them and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. They seized him and brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he pronounced judgment on him.

²¹But Abishai son of Zeruiah said, “Shouldn’t Shimei be put to death for this, because he cursed the Lord’s anointed?”

²⁰I have found My servant David; with My sacred oil I have anointed him.

²¹My hand will sustain him; surely My arm will strengthen him.

¹⁵“Behold, I am coming like a thief. Blessed is the one who remains awake and clothed, so that he will not go naked and let his shame be exposed.”

¹¹This is what the Lord says: “For three transgressions of Edom, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because he pursued his brother with the sword and stifled all compassion; his anger raged continually, and his fury flamed incessantly.

¹There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. And this man was blameless and upright, fearing God and shunning evil.

⁷Remember, O Lord, the sons of Edom on the day Jerusalem fell: “Destroy it,” they said, “tear it down to its foundations!”

¹²This is what the Lord God says: ‘Because Edom acted vengefully against the house of Judah, and in so doing incurred grievous guilt,

¹³therefore this is what the Lord God says: I will stretch out My hand against Edom and cut off from it both man and beast. I will make it a wasteland, and from Teman to Dedan they will fall by the sword.

³and declare that this is what the Lord God says: Behold, I am against you, O Mount Seir. I will stretch out My hand against you and make you a desolate waste.

⁴I will turn your cities into ruins, and you will become a desolation. Then you will know that I am the Lord.

²“Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her forced labor has been completed; her iniquity has been pardoned. For she has received from the hand of the Lord double for all her sins.”

²⁰In those days and at that time, declares the Lord, a search will be made for Israel’s guilt, but there will be none, and for Judah’s sins, but they will not be found; for I will forgive the remnant I preserve.

⁷Remember, O Lord, the sons of Edom on the day Jerusalem fell: “Destroy it,” they said, “tear it down to its foundations!”

⁶The punishment of the daughter of my people is greater than that of Sodom, which was overthrown in an instant without a hand turned to help her.

⁴Though Edom may say, “We have been devastated, but we will rebuild the ruins,” this is what the Lord of Hosts says: “They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called the Land of Wickedness, and a people with whom the Lord is indignant forever.

²⁸Then the nations will know that I the Lord sanctify Israel, when My sanctuary is among them forever.’”